Greenville County Schools to open Wednesday

After much deliberation and consultation with law enforcement, Duke Power, SCDOT, and other emergency response officials, Greenville County Schools has determined it is safe to operate on regular schedule tomorrow, Wednesday, September 13. No GCS facility sustained significant damage from Tropical Storm Irma.

Though six schools are currently without power (Tanglewood Middle, League Middle, West Greenville, Ellen Woodside, Riley CDC, and Hughes Middle) Duke Power expects power to be restored to all GCS locations by midnight.

“We recognize the ongoing inconvenience many of our employees and students are experiencing from a lack of power hopefully the opportunity for electric lights, hot meals, and conditioned air will make up for the inconvenience of cold showers and dressing in the dark,” a Greenville County Schools spokesperson said Tuesday.

District personnel will be rechecking locations after midnight. If any schools are without power Wednesday morning, parents will have the option to keep those students home with no penalty. An up-to-date list of schools without power (if any) will be shared with media and posted on the District website and social media sites at 6 a.m. Wednesday. Those schools will have emergency lighting produced by on-site generators and the temperature will be monitored for safety throughout the day. Food and drink will be delivered for breakfast and lunch.

Many roads around the county remain closed and numerous traffic signals are out due to power failures, so we encourage everyone to use extreme caution when traveling. Buses are being re-routed around areas of concern and some bus stops will be bypassed. Families affected by these routing changes will be contacted via phone by the District’s Transportation Department. If unable to find an alternate route to school, those absences will be excused.

Greenville County Schools Inclement Conditions Evaluation (ICE) Team inspected all 100-plus GCS schools, centers, and offices this morning and reported back to our incident command center. Follow-up inspections have been made at all facilities and many concerns have been corrected.

Please join us in expressing appreciation to all the linemen, emergency responders, law enforcement, and district custodial, maintenance, and facilities personnel who have been working all across Greenville County since first light to clear and repair damage from last night storm.